Hello and Welcome. I'm Dr. George Lundberg speaking for myself and for co-author Dr. Bertalan Mesko of Webicina.com and this is At Large at MedPage Today.

Medical education and medical practice at all levels, already online in so many ways, can no longer remain aloof from social media.

When patients ask questions about the online world, or more precisely about social media, medical professionals should at least be aware of the issues and be able to give an honest, nondefensive, appropriate answer without hesitation.

Patients may well ask their physicians whether a particular diabetes blog is reliable or where they can locate relevant Facebook groups and Twitter channels focusing on their conditions. Medical professionals in practice, in residencies, or still in school need to be trained to meet any special needs of e-patients.

Sometimes it seems that, worldwide, everything is changing -- except medical education, which can seem the slowest to evolve of all endeavors.

Hoping to change that fact, Dr. Mesko launched an elective course at the University of Debrecen Medical School and Health Science Center in 2008 in order to help medical and public health students learn more about social media.

Several semesters later, the course has evolved and grown substantially, in response to feedback from hundreds of students via online questionnaires. This course teaches about the basics of social media from medical blogging, Twitter, and Facebook to how to search properly and related topics.

After a presentation about this course at the Medicine 2.0 Congress at Stanford University in November 2011, a U.K. physician asked permission to travel to Debrecen, Hungary, every week during the semester just to attend the course. So, Dr. Mesko developed and launched a new global format called The Social MEDia Course.

Times do change as do attitudes of current and future physicians.

We believe that students and physicians may significantly improve their knowledge and practices about online issues if they are presented with practical examples and useful suggestions in an exciting way.

The course we describe is free and includes 16 innovative Prezis (the zoomable canvas) with tests to take, and even "gamification" to add to the motivation of students and medical professionals alike.

That's our opinion. We are Dr. George Lundberg and co-author Dr. Bertalan Mesko, At Large for MedPage Today.

Bertalan Mesko, MD, graduated from the University of Debrecen Medical School and Health Science in 2009 and is working in clinical genomics. He is the managing director and founder of Webicina.com, the first free medical social media guidance service for patients and medical professionals. He is the author of the award-winning medical blog, Scienceroll.com, and the educator of the Social Media in Medicine university credit course.

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